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Undead Genesis: Zombie
    Epidemic Origin
     
    Published by Colten Steele - [email protected]
     
    Copyright 2014 Colten Steele
     
    Smashwords Edition
     
     
    Smashwords Edition, License Notes
     
    Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book
remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be
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If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download
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    Before you read…
    This is the second short story in my Zombie series.
While it is fine to read this book first, I would recommend reading Zombie Threat: The Undead Arise before
delving into this one. It is available at most online
bookstores.
     
     
    Table of Contents
    Chapter I – Arise
    Chapter II – Above All
    Chapter III – Who Am I
    Chapter IV – No Turning Back
    Chapter V – White Flag
    Chapter VI – Can Only Imagine
    Chapter VII – Lay Me Down
    Chapter VIII – 10,000 Reasons
    Chapter IX – Revelation
    Chapter X – White Flag
    Chapter XI – How Great
    Chapter XII – Redeemed
    Chapter XIII – Awake my Soul
    Chapter XIV – Never Let Go
    Chapter XV – Save Me
    Chapter XVI – East to West
    Chapter XVII – Open the Eyes
    Chapter XVIII – Waiting Here For You
    Epilogue
    Author Notes
     
    ~ Chapter I
~
     
    Marik slowly woke before the darkness started
to surrender to the coming day. He had been taught from his
earliest days to wake up just before sunrise for the express
purpose of experiencing the marvelous arrival of this day. He
carefully stretched each sore limb, one at a time, after an
uncomfortable night curled into a tight ball like an unborn fetus.
His handmade vine hammock was attached precariously to the tree
trunk above him. Both ends of the hammock were wrapped around a
wooden peg placed in a single diagonal shallow groove cut into the
tree. The boy’s cocoon of vines gently twisted and creaked loudly
with each subtle movement.
    The night sky slowly lightened. With his
small fingers Marik widened a gap in the vine mesh and admired the
horizon as it gradually turned from light rose, into an alluring
pink, and finally into the dazzling orange of daybreak. From his
vantage over one hundred fifty feet in the air there was no ground
to be seen, only the rolling green of the rain forest canopy below.
A few feet above him the lowest limbs of a sacred cotton tree
spread over him like a monstrous hand reaching across the
brightening sky.
    Marik was just over thirteen years old. This
was the third time he had seen the sunrise from above the canopy,
and he knew there was a chance he may never see it again. He had
been born and raised below, in a world covered by the jungle where
direct light only penetrated when the sun was overhead. His close
knit nomadic tribe never ventured out of the jungle’s safety, and
only this sacred ritual from the tops of cotton trees gave a member
of the tribe an excuse to see the sunrise. If he was able to
complete this portion of his rite of passage into manhood today, he
may never get an opportunity to see the sunrise again.
    The boy had been carefully scaling this
particular tree for the last five days. Each step required a
shallow notch to be cautiously cut into the trunk of the tree with
a sharpened stone wedge and heavy rock tipped hammer. A long narrow
step was then inserted into the notch giving Marik enough room to
fit both feet and move up the tree. Previous attempts at scaling
this cotton tree by his ancestors had left frequent puckered scars
in the outer bark over the decades.
    Looking down, Marik could see hundreds of
these flat steps in a meandering line, each one meticulously
created by his own hands over the last couple of years. He was only
strong enough to carry six of these platforms at a time upon his
back, so he repeatedly and carefully descended the steps again to
retrieve more.
    He had reached the top of the previous